CLASSICS OF THE NURSERY.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13906, 3 December 1910, Page 7

CLASSICS OF THE NURSERY.

(By' Onus.) (frECIALIA- WRITTEN FOR ''THE TRESS.") Do children nowadays, when they first begin to stumble along tho stony track of knowledge, have such fascinating books as we used to have in the brave old days when Fl.iiicus was consul? Their very names served as sugar plums to sweeten the more nauseous fluvour of their graver parts. "Little Arthur's History,' , '"Little Mary's Grammar!" Could any serious book present itself to the guileless infant, as yet untaught by hard experience, in more alluring . guise? "Little Arthur's History" I was once deeply versed in, but, to my shame, be it 6aid, I have long ago forgotten every word of it, though I retain a dim impression, formed probably in later years, that its gifted authoress would hare been a singularly skilful teacher of history, had she happened ; to possess any knowledge of its subject matter. Eut "Little Mary's Grammar" was no bad book to read. There ; were fascinating stories in it, as of the little boy (or was it little girl?) wiio shared his daily bread and milk with '. a friendly snake, till he was discovered . by his horrified she-parent (I shelter behind the respectable precedent of 51 r Samuel Pepy's "she-cousin"), in tho ' act of tapping that too eager feeder over the head with his spoon! But there were desert spaces in that delectable work, for the stories were ' interspersed with dreary interludes, where the learned writer discoursed of articles, verbs and such "fearful wild- ' fowl," and made abundantly plain, even to a child's intelligence, what a repulsive study grammar may become. One other work on language I recall, ' ■ a learned treatise by one Sonnenschein, intended for an earlier stage in intellectoal growth, by which the lisping infant was to bo beguiled into learning to read on a strictly scientific syllabary plan, a kind of anticipation, as I roj member it, of the phonetic method, dear to the modern educational crank - The last few pages of this book also werp devoted to stories-—they were en- ; thusiasts for stories, even in the darker ■ ages which preceded the dazzling intellectual splendour of this happy era, , ( and stories so fascinating that- they • , overshot their mark. Many an im- , patient child must hsive skipped the syllabaries, half their rkondite wisdom ■ heedlessly ignored, to spell lie difficult ! way through tho entrancing pages of <j ".Tack and the Beanstalk." Where t will you find snch beanstalks now bearing on their crests among the clouds , enchanted castles and :realms haunted '_ of the fay? i -'/ And what "educational expert" of , modern days can hone to vie with that . immortal man, Dr Brewer, who roamed •at will over tho whole range , ' of ] knowledge, reducing it;to crafty catechisms for the intellectual edification of the infant mind? > "The Child's 1 Guide .to Roman History," "The Child's Guide to Grecian History/ , were in •, their way most ..admirable hpoksj .but they paled their* ineffectual fires before t " that all-embracine- masterpiece, "The ilf Child's Guide to Knowledge.'' To -this $ day, jfi I, happened to chance upon , ' a ■*,iago tree, Vl should kn<iw how to split ;*Jtopen and deal with the pith. I even ij; retain vague memories of the processes /followed in drying the various kinds of * t teas, and know, ; that ' "mildew" is at '- J; tiwes disastrously associated with :}' The Swiss family Robinson; or, at • least;,/ta revered and pragmntieal progenitor, must Baye been reared npon •-"The OAild's Guide to Knowledge." " How else, when wrecked upon their ■ happy iglaud, with no' "Encyelopajdia Britunnica" or Masterrann Ready near ■at hand to uid them, could they have such perfect adequacy in situa- :■ tions so tragically difficult ? It is not ,:,everyone that would have the presence ■ mind or ins<antaneotis readiness of resource, to tVink of piercing with a heated iron tke quivering nostril of a buffalo reluctant to be converted into a t reliable gentleman's hack. ; --■ My cony of the "Swiss Family ■■ Robinson,' 1, after doing yeoman's sor- ', vice;-to ivo'generations." is still in tolerabfe preservation, and its inartistic ; rover still pdorned with an edifying picture of that long»and-sleek-haired family kneeling in thanksgiving under ; . the scanty shelter of a miniature palm tree on a too-exiguou3 island washed . by the gentle wavletej of a; gpldn sea. Dear old book, you haie only to glance I ',at its title page to 8«e that it dates j ~i ? >m c yo» days before the voice of the suffragette was heard in the land, for its sub-title, "The Adventures of a rather and bis Four Sons," most un- . gallantly ignores the Frau" Pastorinn, that invaluable spouse with the FortuDatus pockot, from which such inexnanstaole stores of necessaries and ' * ye » luxuries, were so unfailingly proii,, Tlie PJctyres, highly coloured—as tJfey should b e in a book for children— . J™ , "*,* 0 mv sorrow mostly disappeared, out there still remains one presenting the gigantic figure of the father, and the slighter forms of Wo of his sons, vtevelhner their nmsketu at a bear of ■Uigularly engaging and benevolent aspect, and with a general resemblance M outhne to a woolly lamb, and an- - other shorn ng Fritz, in high boots, red«*nped flannel jacket, -and pairtafoons. aurbng himsetf, by the shore of the -. eesolato ocean, at the white-stockinged , leet of a roverend stranger, in a coat co preposterously long that it would W B S Tr™ e n even to TrolaK.«j- P r * wle y- an d passionately JemaiuW infonnaton of the whereiJ 0 "* brother Jack, and--9» an afterthought I—of hie mother. »J rroe'^ c ' a ! old Bur *on puts it with *» engaging detachment from his own gwuiiar charm. It was not of "The ewes Family Robinson" per se that I X ? . U 4V rite > b "t of "The-Swua CtiuF j?°>' nson " in relation to "The . uiiWe Guide to Knowledge." I open almost at random, and light on the Passage which describes how Ernest «aot a singular animal with the muzzle «L i™i onse ' th . c ears of a baro » an d of a tiger. Its forepaws ivere ■ «\\n OTt, and its llin<l Ie S s ye lon fi- ' . w £ at W 'U my mother and brothers ear when they see it?" he cried. "And * m\] tell them" (candour compels the admission that they -wer© not an altruwtic family!) f it was I who shot it!" lou hovo really a correct eve and a steady hand." 1 said (the father, to "•"t), "but I would like to. know the Baaie of your victim; examine it with aje, aud i>erhaps——" '"ft has four incisors," he said, :n----i erupting mc, "and therefore may bei , lo % i tQ * he tribe of the rodentia." ;■ •' , w ßut it has also," I answered, "a, Bouoh which ia the distinctive feature ;' ■*f the marsupalia. I think I may yenture to say that we" (thus easily, more j[«.' 8: uo, did the good man glide into eo\?t Partnership) "have here a female kan/?'.earoo—an animal first discovered by Captain Cook in New Holland." till ™'H anyone venture to deny that a Sij father and son, possessed of such Varied K-and extraordinary erudition, must have il-boen steeped to the li#3 in the univerp l ;«al law of "The Child's Guide to ■Know|f ledger